- What kind of activities did they have at Bridge School. Did
they have plays or recitals?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I was in a play one time. I got up and said, “We will now
sing Fiddely Dee for YOU!” During practices, the teacher would
always tell me to emphasize the “you” at the end.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking
(left) & Norma "Jeanie" Heiden (right) -
(start singing together)
Fiddley Dee
Fiddley Dee
The fly has married the bumble bee.
The fly to the bee
Will you marry me?
And live with me,
Sweet bumble bee.
Fiddley Dee
Fiddley Dee
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Boy, you’re memory is still good to remember all that stuff!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - And then we’d sing The Old Grandfather’s Clock.
(Everyone singing together) -
“And it stopped short,
Never to go again.
When the old man died.”
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We had parent-teachers meetings way back then too. I
remember I was in the second grade and we all had to get up and say
a nursery rhyme. I played the part of Jack Sprat in the rhyme about
Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
That is when Leo gave me the nickname, Jack. He had a nickname for
everyone.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - So that’s where that came from, I remember him calling
you Jack.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We always had music at school. Harrison Dentel played the
piano and we had the old Golden Song Books.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I still have a copy that we bought at a yard sale. We used
to sing out of that every morning at Bridge School.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I have the 100th Anniversary Book for Bridge School if you
would like to see it sometime, Ralph.
Ralph Heiden - When you reached the end of the eighth grade, then what?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - People back then always thought that 8th grade was enough
schooling for anyone.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - You didn’t have to go on to high school in those days. I was
the first one in our family to go.
Harrison Dentel came to the house when I finished the 8th grade. He
said, “She’s only twelve years old. What is she going to do here at
home? She should go on to high school.”
Pa didn’t like the idea at all.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden -
Art wanted to go on to high school so bad too. But when he
was in 8th grade, they wouldn’t even let him go to Ida to take the
entrance exam.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They thought going to high school was foolishness. But
finally, Harrison Dental talked and talked to them about Wilma and
they gave in.
Then, when my time came several years later, I had to beg and beg.
Pa said, “All Wilma learned up there was foolishness. Going to
parties and such foolishness.” But, they finally gave in and I got
to go.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I was in the class play my junior and senior years.
Elizabeth Johnson lived across the river and she would come to pick
me up to take me to practice. When it was time for the play, they
asked if my mother and dad were coming. I had to say, “No.” I
wouldn’t have thought about asking them. Pa would have thought that
it was really a lot of nonsense.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Back when I would have gone, you would have had to pay
tuition to go to high school. The pastor’s kids were going to go and
I could have gone with them but I would have had to walk to the
parsonage to catch the ride every day.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Our road was mud at that time and we often had to walk to
the corner to get a ride somewhere. You could usually get down to
where Henry and Edna lived.
When I started working at River Raisin Paper, I rode with John
Beaudrie and I had to meet him down at the corner at 6:30 every
morning.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I remember one Christmas Eve, everybody who came over for
the party got stuck on the road. They had to get the tractor out and
pull everybody out of the mud.
Ralph Heiden - Did you get snowed in very often back then?
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Oh, I can remember walking down the ditches that were
full of snow.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We would still walk to the
Bridge School no matter how deep
the snow was then. It used to get a crust on top and it would be up
as high as the fence posts. We would walk across that and have a lot
of fun. There were always a bunch of us on the way to and from school each
day.
There would be
Walter
(left) and
Lavern Berns,
(right) Lloyd Rath, Junior
Barnaby and Harry Karney. There would be a whole gang of us. I
remember hitting Junior Barnaby over the head with my lunch
bucket. He fell down and I thought I really hurt him but he was
O.K.
Pictured
is what was called a cassette tape back in pre-digital
times.
Ralph Heiden - I always wondered why
Ralph Heiden - Myrna (Drake) Bishop’s husband, Jim,
(left) is a professor at Notre Dame so
we have been emailing things back and forth for a while now. It is
a local call so it doesn’t cost anything. 
Ralph Heiden - Margie
(right) is a professor of linguistics at Purdue University.
She has her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.
Ralph Heiden - It’s also amazing to look at where all the kids have gone to
college. Some of
Carol’s (Toburen) (left) children went to Millersville
University in Pennsylvania.
Janice’s (Clark) (right) went to Louisiana Tech
and Northeast Louisiana.
We
have a number of examples of various families in 4 or 5
generation pictures.
Over
the years, we have also received written memories and
remembrances about this person or topic from various family
members. 
Wilma, Jeanie, Wm Frank, Helma & Marie were
children of 
